


Meridian

by countessofbiscuit



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: A Tangle of Consent Issues, Don't Like Don't Read, Dubious Consent, Established Relationship, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Fuck or (Your Friends) Die, Humiliation, Just a No Good Very Bad Day for Our Heroes, Mentions of self-harm, Military Fraternization, Molestation, Obviously Some Angst, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Sexual Slavery, Slavery, Torture, Vode An Treat, Voyeurism, Weird Biology, Xeno, Zygerria, implied PTSD, largely canon compliant, mild body horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-16
Updated: 2018-08-16
Packaged: 2019-06-27 23:15:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15695331
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/countessofbiscuit/pseuds/countessofbiscuit
Summary: When the sting on the Royal Slave Auction goes sideways, Rex and Ahsoka become toys for the Zygerrian Queen’s viewing pleasure. And it’s nothing like the holopornos.





	Meridian

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kaasknot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaasknot/gifts).



> Mind the tags, y'all.

Ahsoka sat cross-legged on the floor, in the only cell on the stolen slave freighter not overwhelmingly redolent of urine or despair. The metal under her bottom was rough and almost too hot, warmed by the reactors below. She’d been trying to meditate. Instead, she found herself mindlessly worrying scraps of cerulean silk in her hands.

Her outfit was a mockery of its original splendor—a ceremonial gown, maybe for a first narrative dance, if the colonists on Kiros retained Shilian traditions. It was still valuable, but Ahsoka felt tawdry. As for the headpiece that pinched her tips, golden and heavy, she refused to guess its value; inlaid with precious vernstones of considerable grade, it’d fetch a higher price than the Togruta who’d crafted it.

It never boded well when living beings were carted off while material wealth was ignored.

A fly had been irritating Ahsoka for the past hour. It finally grew too comfortable in her stillness and hovered rudely near her nose. She swatted it into silence with a piece of silk.

They were on their way to Zygerria to investigate, Council’s orders.

The plan of infiltration was entirely Anakin’s, with little input from Master Kenobi, who seemed strangely ambivalent about the operation. Something about it was distasteful to him. Normally he’d be the one sweet talking the local scumlord, while she and Anakin strong-armed lesser scum out back. That he’d leave Anakin in charge of the diplomacy of deceit struck her as … reckless. Well, reckless for him. Maybe that was part of being a Master: knowing when to cede control.

Anakin hadn’t extended the lesson to his own Padawan. There’d been no debate whatever about Ahsoka playing the slave, except for her own suggestion, grumpy and ill-judged, that they could pretend to barter Rex instead. She’d only meant to remind the present company that slavers’ greed and perversion could be exploited regardless of sex. Thank the Force Rex hadn’t been in earshot; that wasn’t how she thought of him at all.

Besides, Anakin had told her, the queen was rumored to have deviant tastes. He’d said it like a joke, but Ahsoka wasn’t laughing.

(“You want me to look like a plaything.”

“We’ll _both_ be tempting playthings, that’s the point. The queen may wear a crown, but she’s prime sleemo. Besides, this is just a little fact-finding operation. We’ll be in and out.”

“Pfft, when Hutts fly.”

“Trust me, Snips, if I run into any of _them,_ they’ll wish they could.”) 

And so the fine craftsmanship of the gown was sacrificed to accentuate her lanky but filling figure. Time for the dancing girl act—the one Master Secura taught to all the Padawans with headtails, eloquent biochemistry, mammalian breasts, or any combination of the above. She’d also taught them holds that were apparently banned by the Intergalactic Pitfighting Federation, so Ahsoka wasn’t nervous, exactly, but she’d never done this before. 

And the galaxy was kriffing rotten. Especially this corner of it.

She would’ve been thrilled about ditching this rustbucket soon but for their destination. Zygerria was a bizarre place, known to her only through history lessons, some rude words, and its ubiquitous cultural presence in the holoporn industry. Until D’Nar, the closest she’d ever come to a Zygerrian was a slaver masquerading as a Jedi, and, many years later, an _actual_ Jedi. The first had tried to kidnap her as a nubby toddler; she’d brushed up against the second in the Temple dining hall. He was considered very extraordinary—now commanded a corps of engineers, if memory served—but then, collective blood feuds held for little these days. The Jedi led a Mandalorian army, after all.

Ahsoka was intrigued in the same perverse way she wanted to activate one of those “anonym0us & safe hoTt $lave” holosex adverslicks, just to see if they were legit. But an undercover op into Zygerria’s capital city far exceeded the limits of her curiosity. Except for R2, they’d be completely off comms, with no orbital support lying in wait. Couldn’t risk a couple of cruisers showing up in Separatist space until they had a visual on the colonists; humanitarianism, especially towards _neutrals,_ was not a priority, and the Senate made their exasperation at the Jedi getting “distracted” very clear with every cut in funding. Jedi-instigated violence on a Separatist-aligned world, whose only offence was profiting from the uptick in displaced and vulnerable beings, wouldn’t look good. Or something. 

So if things … escalated—and they usually did—there would be little Ahsoka could do except play along. The question was, how far?

There was a faint _rap-tap-tap_ on the metal door. Ahsoka scrambled to her feet. 

“Commander?”

_Kriff._

Rex. 

Her hindbrain chirped _mate!_ but she couldn’t afford to think like that. Not now, not ever. Whatever they’d gotten up to after hours in the past, he was still her captain. She had a duty not to compromise him by giving way to displays of “attachment”—in other words, throwing a selfish fit about having to parade herself before someone else. Especially when his attachment to her seemed on the wane.

Still, if Rex realized what silly stunt she and Anakin were trying to pull— _hurr durr, maybe if I flash someone while my dweebish Master tries to flirt, the whereabouts of fifty thousand Togruta will fall out of the queen’s skirts_ —he’d probably call foul. One look at her outfit and he’d know which way was Coruscant.

“Are we there?” Ahsoka croaked, dithering by the door, her mouth dry from the heat and her own nerves.

“Almost,” Rex replied. “Finally cleared. Planetfall in ten.” 

She didn’t know what else to say besides “okay.” 

Rex’s boots shuffled on the gritty sheeting in the silence that followed, his anxiety falling upon her like a sudden downdraft in the Force. She should’ve known he’d read a systems-wide error in a one-word answer. Hiding her jitters wouldn’t work. Rex was as keen as Kix, and when it came to her and Anakin, anything deviating from the SOP for Batshit Insanity made _him_ nervous.

“Are you going to open the door?” Rex finally asked. 

“Uh … no.” 

“What’s going on, Ahsoka.” His tone was one of professional concern—it wasn’t even a question, more an order in reverse. He fell into that sometimes. Ahsoka used to think it was the officer talking; the more she learned about his upbringing, the more she suspected he just didn’t know what to do with tangled emotions except to double-down on the competence. Often nothing else would’ve seen him through the next minute on Kamino.

Ahsoka took a deep breath. “Anakin suggested I slice up the gown. You know, for dramatic effect. And. Well. I’m...” 

_Embarrassed._

Silence. His disquiet eddied in the Force. It drew her to him, along with other palpable things beyond his control: the tang of his sweat, and, beneath, the nuttiness of his warm skin. And even lower still, the musky smell of this morning’s hasty polish sticking to his thigh— 

Then there was a groundswell of protectiveness, a harmony of feelings like _beskar’gam_ and the swell of Rex’s bicep, but marred by the dissonance of alarm, tinny and harsh. 

_“Shab,”_ he said, thudding against the door. 

Ahsoka paused, fingers on the handle. “What?” 

“You’re going into heat, aren’t you?” 

“What? No! No, no, no. _No.”_ She laughed awkwardly, curdling a little inside. Their staff office tryst a few months ago had a very embarrassing epilogue in which Rex found her up a tree in the Nubian Memorial Garden, knuckles deep, sobbing, and chomping on the carcass of some poor pom-hopper in the middle of the night. 

Rex’s presence in the Force uncoiled, his tension brushing past her like a desert wind, coarse and unpleasant, before he settled into placidity again. 

“Thank fu—Force. That’s. That’s good.”

His regard warmed places deep inside Ahsoka that the reactors couldn’t touch. But she also didn’t know if that was his duty or devotion talking—was it the responsible captain or the concerned lover who’d lent his commander a hand when she’d turned feral and oversexed for a week? Lately, she’d wondered. _Save the eopie tears, Snips._ The time for worrying about _that_ was in about two standard weeks, because it would be bad news banthas if she was still playing the slave on karkin’ _Zygerria_ when her worst wires went live. 

“But I’ll still promise to bite anyone who tries anything,” Ahsoka said with artificial cheer, idly wondering if her venom was as toxic to Zygerrians as it was to humans. 

More shuffling. “So … can I please see you, Soka?” 

“Only if you tell me what you’re wearing first.” 

“Heh. That’s Fives’s line,” he said halfheartedly. “Some Zygerrian get-up we found in the hold. Lethris skirt. Bronzium gorget. A sith-age helmet. Just like the pornos.”

Rex didn’t say it like he was proud of the fact, but Ahsoka threw open that door. 

He looked like some sort of sandswept warrior, alright. Awkwardly trying to rest the bulky helmet underneath his arm, he was probably as uncomfortable in his attire as she was in hers, but the overall impression was that of good uj cake: golden, warm, and faintly spiced—probably a little sticky too, but after a couple dry weeks, Ahsoka could’ve licked him clean right there. The dusting of hairs along his jaw only sent her mind further down the sluice. 

It wasn’t hard to guess where his own thoughts tended. His eyes grew suddenly very wide. They darted between her admittedly striking headdress, her impractical heels, the body jewelry that framed her ribs and mirrored the curve of her hips, and where her lekku tips rested, with vexing boldness, on her breasts. The amount of skin on display wasn’t much more than usual—whoever expected her to run around in bukkwool robes needed a lesson in Togrutan thermoregulation cycles—but the slit up the side of the skirt had _definitely_ gotten out of hand. 

Rex ran his hand over his cropped hair and almost dropped his helmet again. It was cute, really, how he forgot he could use his arms independently of one another. She’d long ago made peace with questioning the chain of command so soon upon meeting him—she’d been a brat, true, but kriff, he’d _felt_ like a kid to her. And he still did sometimes, for all that this war was long. 

“I wish you were coming with me,” he mumbled, guilt splashed across his face. 

Her lekku flushed. It was the first time since Umbara he’d expressed interest in her company.

“Yeah, me too, Rex.” Unable to help herself, and a little emboldened, she reached out and stroked the fuzz on his cheek. “But someone’s gotta keep an eye on Anakin, and Master Obi-Wan looks like he got roughed up by a rancor. He’d make a pretty lousy gift.”

“Don’t know why anyone has to be given away. She already has thousands of Togruta.”

“An educated guess. We gotta speak their language to find out. Zygerrians have a habit of sniffing out Jedi, so mindtricks are off the table. They can also smell sentiment, so if this goes sideways—”

“You’re a Jedi, and I’m just a clone,” he declared flatly, taking her hand from his face, squeezing it once, and letting it drop.

That greasy undercurrent to Rex’s Force signature licked at her awareness again. These thoughts were too serious; this wasn’t the unease of an infil—this was the self-reproach of a soldier wanting something he shouldn’t. Recognizable only because she felt it too and didn’t know what to do about it. 

“No. _No._ I was going to say, I’m just the snottiest shiny to ever wear a kama, you don’t know me from Xim, I got pinged to your muster two rotations ago, and so on and so forth.” Speaking of greasy. Ahsoka winked and thumped a hand on his gorget. “Anything else useful in the hold? Like a big ugly sack and maybe some food?”

Rex smiled. It wasn’t toothy or broad, but it did soften the corners of his eyes. “What would you like?” 

She adopted a comically pensive attitude. “Two quarter-pounders. You know how I like ‘em.” 

“Red and maybe dead. Right. I could take a look in D’nar’s little pet shop—” 

“Just the sack, Rex. Thanks.” 

Rex actually winked back as he opened the door and turned towards the back of the freighter. He was trying her nonchalance on for size, and she suddenly ached with love for him. His humor had always been a little heavy, but lately it carried a pall too, one he’d brought home from Umbara. One he couldn't shrug off, even around her.

She wondered how he felt being chosen for this mission. There hadn’t been a good moment to ask. Obi-Wan and Cody made the more obvious team. But Cody was so kriffing high up, even Ahsoka felt like she’d land on her ass if she tried to get a good look at him, and the 7th Army fell into his lap whenever “Jedi business” took Obi-Wan away from the front lines. 

Having Rex around made _her_ more comfortable, but being separated from his brothers right now must hurt more than it helped. His bunk in the wardroom had been empty since that first night back; he’d been sleeping with Torrent. Nothing spoke truer to the dark side of attachment than her frustration, tearful and selfish, at not being able to follow him in there. Or to share in his grief, without feeling like an intruder. What a day of hard truths that had been: recognizing that Rex didn’t belong to her, but that she was lucky to serve beside _him._

And that tasting the Force itself beneath the warm weight of him was her secret privilege, not her due. Never that. 

Rex’s footsteps clacked on the sheeting when he returned a few minutes later. “This might work,” he said, stepping back into the cell. In his hands was a lump of dense, scratchy fabric. 

“Perfect.” And she meant it. She’d sweat buckets in this, ruin the silk, and hopefully stink like the backside of a bantha.

“Are you sure you’ll be alright?” he asked, fingers drumming on his helmet. “I—we could always rethink the tasking order.” 

And have him subject himself before some slimy slaver? Absolutely not. Rex wouldn’t be able to read the queen like she could. There wouldn’t be much subtlety about it if the queen wished to make a spectacle of Ahsoka, but she could try to stay one step ahead of the power-play game. 

“In five minutes? No, I’ll be fine. Besides,” she said, trying to mimic the brow wiggle Rex did so well, “maybe they’ll put me in those fancy binders.” 

Rex inhaled sharply, his brow answering with a wrinkle. _“Soka…”_

“Yeah, yeah, bad joke.” The freighter shuddered under her feet. They were breaking atmosphere. “Let’s just hope Anakin’s been paying attention to Master Obi-Wan’s lessons in diplomacy, or it’ll be a very _different_ kind of aggressive negotiation for all of us.” 

Ahsoka tossed the generous cape over her head. Beyond the tinkling of jewels and the brush of fabric against her montrals, she heard Rex mutter, “I’ve got a bad feeling about this.” 

* * *

* * *

Rex’s knees ached.

Everything ached. He’d fallen from a balcony, landed awkwardly on an armored guard, and been electro-whipped into unconsciousness three times this afternoon. But he’d been kneeling on stone for an eternity, so it was those sore bones that kept clawing at his attention. 

He’d counted all the fronds on the indoor plants; he’d calculated the hour by the angle of shadows on the floor tiles, the number of which he’d also estimated; he was now trying to recite every team in every league of the Galactic Cup. If only the queen would let him stand, he could get on with ignoring her sordid negotiations and the worst of his localized pain. 

“... you can reassure Marlo that he will be compensated for the low prices his specimens fetched today. But I will only talk _numbers_ with Gorga. Promise a Hutt a decicred and it will slime a treasury out of you.”

The queen was speaking about the slave auction as if it had gone ahead, despite the commotion he and the Jedi had caused. Maybe it had. After being burned into submission, Rex had been dragged from the arena in binders, separated from the others and his clothes, and strung up in a cell for interrogation. He knew nothing else. 

Sitrep: stuck in the slit trench and armed with a spoon. Rex didn’t like to rag on the General, but something told him Kenobi could’ve teased a location out of the queen without all this mess. 

“He will want flesh to seal any deal,” replied the man who was maybe the queen’s chief counsellor, maybe her consort. Rex hadn’t worked it out. The currencies of Zygerria were sex and hierarchy, and he suspected they were exchangeable. 

“That human would satisfy Gardulla,” the man continued. 

Rex fought the instinct to look up and give them the satisfaction of his attention. He was the only human in the room. He was the only captive here, too—even the Twi’lek attendants had been removed—and that worried him even more than his stark nakedness. He may have been an ARC and an officer, but he was a standard first, born to a platoon of 36, and defeat in such detail, picked off one by one, was _never_ supposed to happen. 

“I have other plans for him,” the queen hissed. There was a heavy pause. “You don’t know who he is, _do you?_ ”

Even without the Zygerrian rig, Rex was sweating. This city baked on a mesa like dung on a dewback. Now he felt the beading of liquid anxiety in the soft bits behind his knees and inside his elbows. His pulse drummed thickly against the collar around his neck. He hadn’t talked, though he’d felt the burn of those electro-whips lick his very tongue. The queen’s question was rhetorical, and thus insinuating.

“Some renegade Mandalorian?” was the counsellor’s verbal shrug.

“You’re so unimaginative, Molec. Don’t let the light mane fool you. He’s a Republic _clone._ ” 

Always with the hair. The galaxy really gave Kaminoans too much credit for their ability to control _all_ phenotypic variations. The 404th’s best limmie squad was captained by a lieutenant who looked like his growth jar had been injected with bleach. 

“He doesn’t look like the others.”

_Others?_

Rex tried to shrug off the comment. Zygerria had a functional holonet and subspace transceiver service; it wasn’t off the grid like Kamino. They would know perfectly well what his brothers looked like, probably better many citizens of the Republic. For all their political bathashit, those shadowfeeds at least showed their faces—and got them right. 

Still, his shoulders tensed.

A rustling of fabric suggested the queen was moving. With his head bent, only a mutating shadow across the patch of sun-bleached carpet told him she was getting closer. Her slippers were utterly silent. Rex wondered if that was a function of their design or a regal skill. 

Green and heavily embroidered, they soon entered his field of vision. The queen began to circle him. “No, this one is _special._ He works beside Jedi.”

Actually, he was just a junior officer with recon training and deceptive hair who didn’t have a say in his assignments—and one who deserved to have his regiment seconded to a commander who hadn’t _led_ his unit into the worst blue-on-blue action of the fucking war. But sure, he was special: he was blind as well as blonde. 

Two claws scratched down the nape of Rex’s neck and into the gap beneath the collar. He was jerked out of his slouch, his head craned back, as the Queen leered down at him. Her yellow eyes burned with possessive greed, her mouth puckered in mock sympathy. 

“You’re the favored slave, aren’t you?” 

Rex saw red. And it wasn’t just the press of metal against his windpipe, for he saw flashes of green and blue, too. 

(“I was using you!”)

Sometimes having perfect recall did its own demoralizing work. When the taunts of your enemies echoed the sweet refrains of childhood, you started to question everything in between. It made Rex wonder if there really was a malfunction in his design, and that’s why he was so miserable. 

_From water we’re born, in fire we die, from vat to vat, we serve the Jedi._

The queen took his choked cough as protest and it only encouraged her. “Yes, yes, you’re probably an officer—commander this or captain that. You may even have a _name._ But you are still a slave to the whims of the Jedi.”

Rex pressed into the collar, testing the Queen’s strength. He wanted nothing more than to blackout again. Everything was too fucking bright here. Where was the comfort of his bucket? He was so tired of discovering he had nowhere to hide. 

She released the collar. Rex fell forward onto his hands, hard.

“Well, you’ve moved up in the galaxy. You are no longer the slave of an enslaved order. Now you serve royalty.” 

What a bunch of _osik._ He was still coughing, but he saved face by hacking what was left of the moisture into his mouth onto the marble floor. “The Republic _owns_ my shebs.” He was proud of it. Mostly. “They’ll retrieve me. I’m expensive. It’s the hair.” 

The queen sneered, her long nose crinkling. “When was the last time _you_ retrieved prisoners of war? I’ve processed hundreds. If only I could get what the Republic paid to create you … but you clones depreciate so quickly.”

Rex had thought it impossible to feel any worse. But he could’ve collapsed forward again, his body chasing his mind to meet this new low. That brothers had kneeled before him in this very shithole, made to pay for their own abandonment … it gnawed at every line of code that held Rex together. 

“The Jedi never come looking for you,” she continued. “And they imagine themselves _masters._ Hah! They call you into being, order you into their crusade, and then _hoobsch!_ ” The queen made a bursting motion with her hands and shrugged her shoulders. “They lose you.”

If Rex never had to hear another brother beg to go back...

(—just me, sir, I’ll, I mean, _we’ll_ catch up, you always said we were a pair of scritters, sir, we’ll be back be back itching your shebs again before you can take a dump in peace, please, I can’t leave him, please, sir, please, please, oh gods _please—_ )

Well. It wouldn’t be too soon. 

The Citadel loomed in the back of Rex’s mind. Fives muttering on helmet comms that rescuing Piell might be “the mission,” but if everyone—especially that taxidermied Tarkin—could stop treating the troops they rescued with him like so much deadweight, that would be great. And that was before Echo, when his muttering reached the General because he’d shouted it _at_ the General. What was that they said about ARCs—all mouth and kamas? Yeah. Fives took that a little too far. It would do for him in the end. 

Could Rex say that was worse? Worse than kneeling in binders before a Separatist despot, sullen in the face of truth?

The queen seemed to tire of his silence. The shadow of her hand waved repeatedly, beckoning for something. 

“Perhaps then, clone, you’ll enjoy watching this as much as I,” she said.

Rex braced himself. Dread sludged through his tired limbs. A draft brushed across his clammy skin when the doors opened behind him. 

Then he heard her—a jingle of jewels and a torrent of trash talk. And his heart sank. 

_Not my girl._

“— _will_ let me go. And that’s a _promise,_ not a fucking mindtrick. I wouldn’t touch your vile brains until I’ve shattered your skulls and spilled their contents on the floor. Then I might eat them.” 

Rex twisted round. Two Zygerrians were hauling a thrashing, hissing Ahsoka into the throne room. Her wrists and ankles were bound, but she struggled against them with a violence that said she was out for blood—particularly those of the guards. One had his bicep stuffed under her chin, his free hand holding her wrists taut behind as he tried to strangle her into silence; the other had her calves squeezed together in an arm lock.

Rex was a little impressed, for all he was outraged. Ahsoka was as strong as a veermok and as slippery as a greased shell. Moving her anywhere against her will required two experienced clones, too. 

“You’ve messed with the wrong Jedi. And I don’t just mean me. My master hates your slaver guts. He’ll bring your empire down around your hairy ears and bury it like a sarlaac’s sandy shit.” 

_That’s my girl._

It took everything in Rex not to react. He wanted to leap up. His ankles were free, after all—a fact that suddenly shamed him more than being found in just his skin. He should _fight._ He could intercept her, throw his shoulders against one guard before disabling the other with a firm roundhouse kick to his ugly maw—

Then Ahsoka spotted him. Her brilliant blue eyes locked onto his and widened in fear. Her body went slack between the guards. Before Rex could intervene, there was a nuzzling behind his left ear—like she was pinned behind him in the bunk, needed to take a piss, and wanted to be nice about waking him. But she still had a point to make. 

_Don’t try it!!_

Rex shook his head, instinctively trying to clear a thought that wasn’t his. They were easier to recognize now, and far less frequent, but he still hated when she did that. Especially when she was right. 

A massed target was an easy target. If the queen knew the degree of his devotion, she could range the perfect shot.

So he stayed put, grinding his teeth together until his jaw ached worse than his knees. 

If he were a Jedi, Rex suspected this is where he would draw on the Force to calm himself. Ahsoka certainly wasn’t. But she also wasn’t using it, and that was worrying. A Jedi who didn’t wield their powers to evade danger was usually convinced doing so would endanger someone else. Rex felt a strange compulsion to nudge back, to reassure her that if using the Force meant bringing this entire palace down upon their heads, so be it.

But that wasn’t his thought either. That was some shadow in the back of his mind he couldn’t quite shake. 

The two guards drew level with him and dumped Ahsoka like a sack of tubers. She landed hard on her shoulder, thudding onto the marble floor with a pained grimace that made Rex’s chest cramp. He searched her frame for any sign that she’d been questioned with prejudice. Whatever they’d done to infuriate her, they’d been tidy about it; not even the raw edges of her costume were frayed. The only thing missing were her shoes. She’d probably stabbed someone with them. 

Ahsoka propped herself on her elbows, always impatient with her pain, and took aim at the queen. “And as for you, you yellow-livered sleemo—”

The taunt was hardly out before Ahsoka choked on it. Her entire body began to writhe under tendrils of electricity as the queen looked on with a sinister grin. The shock seemed never-ending. Even the stones in her jewelry vibrated, and Rex swore there was an odor of burnt silk. Did the queen mean to kill her right there? He was reconsidering Ahsoka’s command, prepared to rend the collar with his bare hands and fry himself in the attempt, when her spasms ceased. Ahsoka heaved on the floor. Her breath came in great winded gulps. 

“Your Master,” began the queen, stepping forward and indicating towards another part of the palace with the shock remote, “is in _my_ bed, you little skug.” 

She complemented this filthy lie with another brief shock that countered Ahsoka’s efforts to sit up. 

Enduring torture under your own pain was one thing. Now Rex fully understood, beyond theoreticals, why the Alphas had made RTI a spectator sport. Only years of cognitive conditioning that told him to value mission integrity above the individual—using techniques he suspected were illegal under the Ruusan Convention—prevented him from doing something that would only give the queen exactly what she wanted: leverage.

“Skywalker has been remarkably tractable, for a Force-sensitive,” said the queen, almost to herself, as she ascended her throne again. “And Kenobi … well. His weakness, compassion, is being worked upon as we speak.” 

Rex stared at Ahsoka imploringly. If she would only look at him! Just a glance of reassurance that they were in this together. That the objective was now survival and escape, _not_ extracting intel. There was only one Togruta Rex cared about in that moment, and she was panting on the floor, her face pinched as she tried not to cry, massaging her montrals with trembling fingers. Rex could only imagine how they stung under that headpiece. 

The queen’s voice echoed through the chamber now, as she sat elevated on her throne. “But you have resisted processing long enough, and it will please me greatly to oversee it myself. Molec!” 

The queen’s accomplice was reclining on the steps. He’d been dividing his silent attention between the spectacle and his datapad, like the abuse of sentients was a distraction to be tolerated before the real work of wrapping up a botched slave auction could proceed. Snapped to heel, however, Molec set his datapad down and unclipped the electro-whip from his belt. He turned the embossed hilt over in his clawed hands as if feeling for the perfect grip.

“Take comfort, clone,” the queen cooed, stroking one of her pink birds, “I will make equals of you yet.” 

He’d guessed her motives correctly, then: she expected his surrender to look like complicity. Her words, sweet and insidious like tibanna, were meant to beguile, and the more predictably Rex played into her hands, the sooner she might get bored. He schooled his features into passivity, like he’d seen General Skywalker do countless times across a holotable. He was no Jedi, but then, neither were these Zygerrians. They’d be easier to fool. But watching Ahsoka’s endless struggle to right herself, bound like a mott roast, tested his composure. 

Molec ignited the whip. Its tip flicked across the marble in a trail of sparks as he circled Ahsoka. 

“Before this day is done,” declared the queen, leaning forward on her throne to sneer at her, “you will kneel beside your slave and before me. Your Jedi arrogance will only delay the inevitable. And it will only prolong the suffering of your old masters—to say nothing of the Togruta chained in my service.” 

Another lie, maybe, but Rex filed the admission away for later.

Ahsoka shimmied her feet underneath her, and finally drew herself up. She hadn’t been trying to sit or kneel—she’d been trying to stand. Rex and his sore knees wondered why he hadn’t even bothered. He’d submitted from the moment they dragged him from the arena, reverting to obedience in his tiredness and hopelessness. 

His commander stood before the throne, snarling and defiant, as if, for all her years of tutelage by a bunch of repressed monks, she’d never heard of obedience in her life. Rex’s heart stirred out from underneath his own shame. This was the warrior he’d been created for, the one he’d been promised. Not because she was an infallible Jedi—that guff had been ground into the Geonosian dust—but because the Umbaran shadows taught him what true light looked like. 

Ahsoka hissed, pronouncing her fangs and her low opinion of the queen’s plan with the curl of her lip. “You mistake arrogance for disdain, slaver.”

“And you mistake patience for leniency, skug,” the queen answered.

She made a grasping motion with her fist, and Rex turned just in time to see Molec strike the whip at Ahsoka’s ankles, slinging her onto her back. Then he laid into her with a ferocity of the truly unhinged. Like he was taking his revenge for something much more personal than an ideological feud. The Guard didn’t beat mutant rats off Coruscant’s citizenry with half so much savagery. 

Again and again, the lash came down. One cracked against the side of her headtail and Ahsoka finally cried out. 

_“Stop!”_ Rex roared, with a ferocity he didn’t recognize in himself. 

It certainly surprised Molec. He froze, arm raised to deliver another blow while the end of the whip flopped harmlessly down. Molec’s attention was diverted; if Rex really had just let the tooka out of the sack, he needed to capitalize on it. 

Rex stood up, his knees cracking like he was eighty, not eleven. He hoped that was enough to complete his insolence and earn him a beating that would give Ahsoka a chance to breathe. Molec rounded on him, cracking the whip behind him as he rolled his shoulders with a feral scowl. Rex squared his shoulders. 

“Wait,” the queen barked. Molec paused. Rex’s guts turned to stone waiting for the other boot to drop. Molec was just a brute; the queen was wilier. She wanted broken spirits, not broken skin or bones—she craved a _show._ And something told Rex she was about to demand one. 

“Give the clone your whip, Molec. Let the him take his own revenge.”

Molec didn’t protest. Very well-processed, indeed. He shoved the hilt into Rex’s bound hands with a grunt. Then he stalked back to his discarded datapad, uninterested again. 

Rex stood stunned. He prevaricated, fingering the metal discreetly. Not as Molec had done, with a perverse fondness for the weapon, but to find the energy controls. His thumb brushed against the mechanism, just under the guard. He rolled it sideways until it clicked off.

So much for playing neutral, this queen thought he was downright bitter. Like some of the Umbaran veterans, resigned and unwilling to dig themselves out from under their fallen ideals; they took all the harm done upon them, fermented it into something ugly, and fired it back out, a scattershot of malice that hit brothers as often as it decimated droids. They spit their duty at his boots, asking him where to point their blasters next. _Roger, roger, sir._

The queen stood up in his peripheral. She called out to him in excitement. “Strike the _Je’daii!_ Make her pay for the hypocrisy of her order with a lash for each fallen comrade.”

Rex’s sick humor said there’d be nothing left of her if he did that. A few brothers had already tried something similar, and it had turned their forearms to pulp. 

Ahsoka lay on the floor, curled upon herself like she was trying to smother a grenade. Her skin glistened with sweat, the blue silk clinging to every damp curve. Gods, she was beautiful.

Rex suddenly hated himself. He hated the queen and her fucking empire. He hated how this war brought him to wield a weapon against an officer—against a _Jedi,_ for the second time in as many months. It wasn’t about who deserved what. The edges of his reality were crumbling faster than he could prop them back up. 

If the Jedi wanted no sentiment in their troops, they should’ve ordered the Alphas in bulk. _Mission integrity,_ his shebs. The General had blown their cover refusing to satisfy this tyrant’s bloodlust. Rex had his own duty: defend the Republic, serve the Jedi. And neither it nor the mission would be served by confirming this Separatist’s low opinion of the Republic’s ideals—or rather, of the men whose blood stained the galaxy Republic red. The GAR owned him, blacks to bones, but he had free will—and a heart too big for his boots. And in that moment, both told him to throw the whip away. 

“Strike the _Je’daii!_ ” the queen screeched. 

And although he couldn’t remember lifting them, Rex’s outstretched arms came flying down.

The tip cracked hard against Ahsoka’s bare thigh—very hard, by the echo that clapped round the room. Like the pop of a sergeant’s slugthrower back on Kamino.

Rex looked down in horror at his hands. They trembled. So it was happening to him, too. Umbaran syndrome. A short fuse at the end of a thousand-klick stare. Had he really just whipped her without thought? His trigger finger wouldn’t flex to kill that sithspitting Krell. He’d just landed a blow against Ahsoka.

Then she opened one glassy eye. And winked. 

He frowned. Was she. _Controlling_ him? 

_Flesh droid._ That’s what the Seps called them, on the days when advocating for clone rights wasn’t getting traction. So easily manipulated, so simple. Just an extension of her will. Umbara had opened up a second front to this war, one inside his own fucking head, the programming of which scared the shit out of him sometimes. And she was playing with him. She hadn’t even done him the decency of giving him a _shabla_ order.

“For the first time in your life, you have power,” the queen jeered. “Doesn’t it feel good?”

Why did people keep asking him that? And no, it didn’t. He felt more powerless than ever. Someone was using him again—someone who knew better. Ahsoka probably thought she was absolving him of responsibility, like Dogma had done. But Dogma was a mere corporal, paying for his insubordination with his life; Ahsoka was a Jedi, making a mockery of his service for a stupid ruse. 

If she wanted to take point on this, she’d have to pull rank. He was done with these Jedi games. She could mindfuck someone else. Rex retracted the whip and tossed the hilt aside.

“I’m not doing this,” he mumbled, somewhere between his anger at Ahsoka and his love for her.

Silence descended. Rex didn’t brace himself for a shock; he was too numb to care. For several moments, he neither heard nor felt anything. He got tangled in memories, trying to figure out, in all their months together, where Ahsoka’s actual regard ended and his servitude, instinctual and more pliable than he realized, began.

“Hmmm. How very noble, for a creature grown in a jar,” the queen said at last.

There were no shadows now. The sun was directly overhead and it poured through the open skylights, baking him. His hair would fade as white as Sticky’s, at this rate. Ahsoka hadn’t bothered to stand up again. Propped up on one arm, her head bowed under the headdress like it was made of gravity, not gold, the fight suddenly seemed gone from her. 

“So, brutality does not thrill you. It will not motivate you. Perhaps you’ve seen too much of it,” the queen mused. She descended among them again, restless in her tyranny, her cruelty as endless and oppressive as the Zygerrian day. Even Molec had retreated through a side door; any hope of following him became moot when Rex heard the bolt slam home on the other side. 

Rex tensed at the queen’s approach. She resumed that possessive prowl. Now that he was standing, he got a faceful of her balmy perfume, thick enough to clog helmet filters. It lodged in the lining of his throat and made him painfully aware of his own thirst. She halted behind him, so close Rex that felt her words as much as heard them, fluttering against his damp neck. “You answer to other base desires. I know you do. You clones are magnificent in that regard—all of Fett’s flesh and none of his bizarre obstinacy.”

There came a press of metal at his jugular, just above the collar. The shock remote. A certain threat, but the velvety hand that caressed Rex’s stubble was the greater danger by far. His patina of sweat turned to ice on his skin. Unease congealed in his stomach. There was no question now what her processing of POWs entailed. 

The queen purred quietly into his ear and slid her hand down his bare chest. “Perhaps that is what stayed your hand, mmm? You feel things for this Jedi? She is an extremely fine creature. So fresh. So _tight_.”

She bit out the final word between her sharp teeth. Rex had to grind his. He couldn’t have said anything coherent, besides shut up, but he was surprised Ahsoka didn’t rise to the bait. There were times she adopted Skywalker’s selective hearing. She had a greater claim to it, able to blame the weather and a very alien hearing apparatus. (“Sorry, Master, it’s this atmospheric pressure. Wreaks havoc on my montrals, ya know?”)

Rex prayed she wouldn’t pull that stunt now—now that the queen’s hand was snaking lower still.

What did he want Ahsoka to do? He’d just sabotaged her own plan, nunabrained and crude though it was. He’d dug this peevish motthole, now he had to sit in it. 

Rex’s blood ran cold. But ran it did. It followed the queen’s touch until it pooled in places it shouldn’t. The world narrowed onto what Rex couldn’t see happening below his waist, his awareness darkening around the edges, like his mind was trying to process the situation through an HUD. Trying to box him back up into his armor, where he was untouchable and in complete control. Or so he’d always thought. 

Rex thickened, to his complete disgust, at the anticipation of contact. He hadn’t been this embarrassed since the first time Cody threw his arm around his neck on the downswing of push-up, and he’d tented into the mats. And he hadn’t been this hard since before Umbara. The past few weeks he’d been rotating through Torrent’s empty bunks, not at all surprised when Ahsoka didn’t come looking for him. A casualty report listing half the regiment didn’t warrant a hero’s welcome. He’d told himself he couldn’t face her anyway; her sadness across a holotable was bad enough. It looked enough like disappointment to keep him one rotation and three decks away from her at all times. 

Which meant now he was so goddamn _starved_ for it, it almost hurt when fingers threaded the sensitive curls around his base, and a hand, plush and totally unfamiliar, gripped him hard. He had to strangle his own pathetic groan, barely succeeding. 

The queen chuckled to herself. “Don’t be ashamed. The Jedi is no better. I can _smell_ it on her.” 

All Rex could smell was the queen, but he knew what she referred to. Intimately. And his cock answered as much to that as the strokes of this stranger’s palm. An eidetic memory supplied the rest. Long fingers slipping through his lips, wet from their coupling. His mouth dyed blue, pressed against hot folds between sienna thighs.

Had Ahsoka been using him then? Playing with him because he was a convenient subordinate? 

Rex had seen far more twisted cases of fraternization, even if—in the sliding scale of shit that was the GAR—a promotion wasn’t anything to bend over for. Ahsoka never abused her rank in that regard. The Jedi could do better teaching their Padawans some muzzle awareness when it came to their powers, sure; but if she flagged him with the Force more than he liked, it was never out of pride or contempt. The truth was, he could be the coldest _chakaar_ to ever make a droid walk backwards, and Ahsoka still wouldn’t have the power to command his heart to flutter every time two blue-tipped horns caught his eye.

What would it cost, to dig Ahsoka’s fingers out from the deepest parts of him? In all the brightest moments of his hard life, she stood at the center. If Rex was her slave, he knew no other way to live.

Rex’s introspection allowed him to forget the queen, but it did nothing to entertain her. She provoked Ahsoka further. “Yes, I’m talking to you, Togruta. You hunger for this human. Have you tasted this slave before?” 

Ahsoka finally broke. She growled and smacked the floor. Around the room, the fronds on every plant quivered. “He is _not_ my slave.” 

The friction around his shaft eased. “No? He fights your war. He’s branded with your mark.” 

A single claw circled the white tattoo on his pectoral, dangerously. Like she was toying with the idea of scratching it out. In her blinkered, perverse mind, the queen was only able to perceive the galaxy transactionally. Maybe she did intend to make a show of repossession right here, tangible and bloody, ripping Ahsoka from his skin and … _tasting_ him herself.

Rex’s stomach heaved. Gods, anything but that. Ahsoka would never—

No. He wouldn’t speculate. Her regard—or lack of it, as the case may be—made no difference. Rex would do it. He’d let this wretch fuck him, if Ahsoka was spared any further harm. If she couldn’t—wouldn’t roll out some Jedi tricks to save him from that, then he really was looking down the blaster barrel anyway. What did it fucking matter. He was so tired. 

“Ah,” sighed the queen. One of her ears twitched against his as she considered something. “I see. I see it now. The way you look at him. The master’s one true weakness. Mistaking servitude for fondness—for _love,_ even.” She giggled to herself. Somehow, it was the creepiest sound she’d made yet. “Well. I will join you together in your pathetic chains.” 

Suddenly, the queen released him. Rex’s cock flopped down heavily against his thigh. His lungs filled with clean, unscented air.

With a snap of the queen’s fingers, booted footsteps approached from behind, before the only thing Rex heard was a great grinding sound, like a larty was being crushed inside his skull. He was being shocked. He fought the shaking in his legs with all his might, conditioned to remain upright, never wishing to go down in a clatter of plates. But it was no good. He collapsed. Next to the sensation of being tattooed by thousands of Kix’s worst hypos, the dull force of the impact was almost unnoticeable. 

It took a moment to finally register the absence of pain. Rex thought the muscles in his neck had seized up, but it was just a guard yanking his collar. Something was clipped to it. Getting up felt beyond him, he could hardly breathe. Until he remembered Ahsoka. He reached for the ground in front and briefly lost control of his hands. His binders were gone. 

Ahsoka was sitting up, breathing deeply, busy shaking out her own wrists and massaging her ankles. The watchful eyes of the queen no longer concerned Rex. Enough was enough. He pushed up onto his hands and knees, still aching and tender, and made to reach for Ahsoka. There came a faint tinkling sound behind him, and enough resistance against his throat that he turned around.

The queen had spoken literally. He was chained to the floor. An upturned tile revealed the mechanism.

It was like collapsing on a battlefield, long fought and dearly bought, only to meet a sky about to rain mortar rounds. Where the fuck was the General? Scratch that—this was his _shabla_ plan to begin with—where was R2? Rex didn’t know how much more of this he could take. And in this heat, too. He was starting to think if a clanker walked up and shoved a blaster in his face, he’d just smile and open wide. 

“I am feeling merciful. Please me by bedding this slave, and I may reconsider my treatment of your old masters,” ordered the queen.

Rex’s eyebrows shot up. 

“I will not touch him to _please you_ ,” spat Ahsoka.

A noble sentiment, Rex almost appreciated it, but two minutes ago he’d been steeling himself to lie back and think of the Republic. Humoring this queen’s … _thing_ together would be a blue milk run by comparison. If a clone couldn’t jerk one out in a crowd, he did without. Rex had never known privacy. He’d been pulled out of one glass jar, only to be stuffed into another when they made him an officer. For years he’d gotten off on an audience, alone and unapproachable in his rank. 

“Fine,” the queen spat back. “Please yourself then. It may very well be the last pleasure you know.”

Rex fell back onto his heels and tried to absent himself from this exchange. He was no more a participant in it than the one earlier, when he might have been tossed to a Hutt to sweeten a deal, like a crate of thermal plastoid or a factory-line E-Web. He was more preoccupied with examining the extent of their bondage; their chains terminated with a ball and handle, the length secured, but able to flow freely, under a metal loop. He didn’t care for the thought of Ahsoka continuing to mouth off, or just sitting in obstinate silence, only to be finally strangled with all the dignity of a nek dog that wouldn’t fight. 

That fate looked more likely when the queen barked for Molec. 

Desperation started to chase away resignation. The Temple had thin walls, Ahsoka always said; but they were still walls. What, besides a chance to overcome her own modesty, was she waiting for? His permission? It was hers. Along with everything else he was or ever would be. “Commander,” he whispered, “ _please_.”

Ahsoka looked at him, her bottom lip trembling, her white brows stitched angrily together. But she didn’t approach. An old, ugly voice in the back of his mind—it was Kaminoan, it tutted at his blonde hair—said he was the problem. That something precious between them had been lost. She’d been willing enough to let him brutalize her, but now she balked at the idea of being touched.

_She’s a Jedi. You’re just a clone._

The side door opened. Molec stepped through, straightening his tunic and brushing down the hair on his forearms. Rex looped a length of chain around his wrists. Unbinding his hands _and_ providing him with a new weapon was a mistake. If Molec so much as breathed on Ahsoka, two-ish meters would be enough to intercept and secure him. He’d share in any shock the queen dispensed, and Rex might finally have some leverage of his own.

“Remind the Jedi why her compliance is non-negotiable,” droned the queen.

Molec shouted something in the native tongue through the door. Only a desperate scream, ragged and wracked with sobs, answered him. The queen tilted her fringed ears towards the sound, gazing cooly at Ahsoka. “Kenobi is getting tired.” 

If that was another lie, it was the one that sold the sergeant. 

Ahsoka shot to her feet in a jingle of chains and jewellery. She stared helplessly at the door until it slammed behind Molec again; then her eyes dropped to Rex. 

He shifted uneasily, gently setting the length of chain back down. His erection throbbed shamelessly under her attention. Rex could no more control that than the boiling temperature in that room. The only thing he could hope to influence was the degree of Ahsoka’s discomfort. So he extended his hand. To the queen, it probably looked like supplication. He hoped Ahsoka took it for what it was. Solidarity.

The tears she’d been battling since being dragged into this nightmare finally fell down her cheeks. But she stepped forward and wrapped her fingers in his.

“I see we all understand each other,” said the queen, intruding upon them again. “Now. Remove your clothes.”

With one of her silk sleeves, Ahsoka scrubbed the tears from her face and took a deep breath, exhaling deliberately. She released his hand and set to work tucking her elbows into the armholes of her top. The silk—as liquid as its excessively vowelled name that Rex couldn’t pronounce—stretched to accommodate her lanky limbs. What with her necklace and montrals, not to mention the collar and chain, she couldn’t hope to pull it off over her head; it was a wonder she got it on in the first place. Very slowly, Ahsoka peeled the fabric down one arm, and then the other. Rex tucked his hands into his lap and stared pointedly at her stomach. He was so close to her—and thirsty enough that the beads of sweat pearling on her skin looked good enough to drink. 

The blue silk came rolling down her waist. Rex watched as Ahsoka fiddled briefly with side of her skirt. In one movement, it fell away. It left her sienna hips festooned with the belt, and it left Rex staring directly at the familiar diamond of white skin below her navel—now crowned with a green gem. When she crossed her legs to roll the top further down, the diamond turning into a tight vee between her thighs, he had to bite his lip. And when she bent over, her naked breasts falling before his face, framed in gold, he had to look away entirely. 

The room was utterly silent except for the tinkling of Ahsoka’s jewellery as she stepped out of the last of her clothes. She rubbed her montrals against his head and started to curl herself into him.

“Stop,” said the queen. Ahsoka froze, their foreheads pressed together. She closed her eyes, sighing into his open mouth, as if resigning herself to take direction on how to humiliate them both. In the corner of his eye, the queen scooted forward on her throne and drew her own skirt up over her knees.

“The slave is parched. Let him wet his tongue.” 

Rex was well beyond warm. But the suggestion threatened to melt the remainder of his cool head down into his groin. What was left of his reason said there were some tactile—and tactical—advantages to the suggestion. The act was a soft one; it could be performed without irritating her toxic glands, and there was no danger of getting locked together in an compromising position.

Ahsoka scrunched up her face, biting out something in Huttese. Her blue eyes finally found his. “I’m so sorry, Rex,” she breathed into the space between them. Then she drew herself upright and stared at the ceiling, like she was afraid of what he’d do with the apology. 

Rex was sorry, too. The queen had succeeded as surely as if she’d known all along. The veil of professionalism had been ripped away, and now they were just two people, each powerless in their own way to act with any integrity. He was sorry to be the one called upon to do this. Any other brother and it was just something to be endured—a war crime, probably—and she’d come running back to him. 

Then Rex felt much, much sorrier still for wishing it were someone else. He scrubbed his hands across his scalp and down his grimy face, reflexively. As if he could scrub out the thought. 

_You either die a hero, or live long enough to realize there’s no such thing._

Ironic, really. How he floundered again for lack of orders. Rex would’ve given anything to have her in his mind, telling him what to do.

But all he had was his rank and hers.

_From water we’re born, in fire we die, from vat to vat, we serve the Jedi._

Rex was burning now. He might as well let himself drown. 

He placed his hands on Ahsoka’s calves and slowly trailed his fingers up her whipcord legs. When he reached her ass, he cupped it and gently pulled her towards him. She shuffled closer, stepping on either side of his numb knees, her thighs opening just before his chin. Rex inhaled what the queen’s nose could smell a meter away—the rich, cloying odor of Ahsoka’s interest. A few licks and his dry mouth would be tacky with it. Bracing Ahsoka with one hand spread across the small of her back, his other hand hoisted the leg nearest the queen up and onto his bruised shoulder—as much to shield Ahsoka’s sex from view, as to make it easier for him to get his tongue underneath her. 

Ahsoka wobbled at first, throwing out a hand and steadying herself on his skull. This was already better. Rex liked being in her hands. And when she brushed her fingers down his rough jaw, cupping his chin and nudging him into her besh, he felt better still. He didn’t have to fake this. 

Tentatively, Rex extended his tongue. Even to him, it felt like a lump of sanding foam—and his lips were worse, cracked and peeling. There was more moisture leaking from her center than he’d known since landing on this forsaken planet. Rex coated himself with it, eagerly, as he massaged his lips into her folds. They bloomed with the attention. Ahsoka had a way of thrusting her tongue in and out of his mouth to a fevered beat when they kissed; it was a trick he’d discovered worked equally well on her lower lips. He began pulsing into her. Steadily. The cilia deep inside her core tickled the tip of his tongue when pushed in; and on every recoil he pursed his lips and sucked, as if on a straw. Or an overripe petalplum.

Ahsoka flexed into him. Her body shook under his hand—more from exhaustion than enjoyment, probably. So Rex upped the pace and the pressure, craning his neck to nestle his nose into the top of her slit. The hand under his jaw had moved back to his head. Like a tooka kitten, her sharp nails kneaded his scalp, rhythmically, unconsciously. Her heel dug into his spine, and his bicep bunched under her raised thigh, squeezing her down on his shoulder as if balancing an arp-six. 

Dehydration made Ahsoka’s juices thick and gummy, but she was still wet, and the sound of his sucking seemed overloud in the silent chamber. His own pleasure was incidental—contemptible, even, in the circumstances—but the tightening in his crotch was impossible to dismiss. She was tightening up, too. Rex could hardly wiggle his tongue past the grooves of muscle engorging at her opening. So he licked. And licked some more. Long strokes complemented with lapping flicks. 

Fingers intertwined with his against the small of her back. Ahsoka squeezed his hand with incredible force. She was close. Eyes shut, teeth bared. Her lekku stripes flushed a deep 501st blue; her tips, becoming more demonstrative with age and length, flexed and curled inward atop her breasts. She shoved his fist around to her front. Rex got the message. He slipped his middle and trigger fingers in between his tongue and her flared folds, wetting them thoroughly. Then he lined them up with her swollen center— 

_“Enough!”_

Rex froze. Ahsoka let out mewl and grabbed her lekku in frustration. They both looked anywhere but at the queen, the guards, or each other. 

“Now,” began the queen, in a measured, saccharine tone. “You will mate with him, Togruta. And you will come when I say you can. Or I will do more than just watch.” 

Fuck. 

Rex didn’t have time to despair over this development before he was pushed backwards, his weight shifting from his shins to his ass. Stretching out his knees was pure agony and he groaned in spite of himself. Almost as soon as he was seated, Ahsoka dropped into his open lap. Her arms clung around his shoulders, her wiry legs wrapped around his ribs. His Little Mynock. Except there was no call for “sucking face”—Padawan for kissing—today. Rex just hugged her tight into his sticky chest. She burned as if she were in heat, the skin beneath her headtail bathed in sweat. 

Ahsoka’s cheek was tucked into his neck, on the side furthest from the queen. Her breath came hot and broken in his ear. “I’m too close, Rex. It’s—it’s going to _hurt._ And we’re going to get stuck. We’ll be stuck. And, oh Force, I don’t want to bite you. Fuck. _Fuck._ Shitting siths on a stick.” 

Whatever she was feeling on him in the Force, it was probably gangrenous—his guilt, his fear, his _want_ rotting him from the inside out. Rex hated not having any answers. But Ahsoka was falling apart, so he had to keep it together. He turned his chin into her montral and stroked her slick back. “Shhh. I’ve got you,” he whispered, certain she could feel the words even if he could barely hear himself. “We’ll take it easy. You won’t hurt me.” 

How he wished he could say the same. She wasn’t built for human cocks, especially not when fully aroused. Her inner walls, grooved and strong, were meant to hold Togrutan junk, all arrow-like and limber. Rex didn’t have a barbed penis, but the shock and sensation of penetration at this stage would be probably be painful enough to make her body mad. Mad enough to secrete a venom chocked with downers—only, it worked more like a paralytic on humans. One you didn’t bounce back from. 

“I grow impatient. What are you waiting for, Togruta?” the queen demanded. “Don’t you know how _good_ he feels? So thick. So smooth.”

Rex had never called in an assassination. It was a little above his clearance. But he knew a couple of commandos who owed him some favors—his side full of standards would have _won_ that _get’shuk_ tourney and they knew it—and this queen was Number One on his hit list. He almost wanted her to come down and lend a hand so he could rip it off her. The growl rumbling into his bones when Ahsoka shoved him onto his back said she felt the same.

Patience on all sides was fraying thin. Rex was still half-blind from the skylight when one of Ahsoka’s slick hands began to stroke his aching cock. He stopped battling his eyelids and squeezed them shut. The sensation was overwhelming. The clutch on his shaft curled his very toes, and his balls buckled when her palm brushed across his leaking tip. His mouth was still awash in the heady taste of her and it shredded his self-control. The injunction on orgasms didn’t apply to him, and he lazily, selfishly, wanted her to pull him off right there. 

They’d probably never be able to do this again, but Rex thanked all the stars that they’d at least done this before. It would be bad enough if they weren’t qualified in each other’s gear. She was edging him closer, winding him up so he’d come quickly while she’d last longer. Getting his flaccid penis milked was about as comfortable as peeling blacks off blisters after a week in the field. But the Grand Army never asked what you wanted, only how many cock hairs you wanted to lose chafing against your fate. So Rex just lay there, trying to find comfort in the cool floor, and the knowledge that this would be one after-action report they probably wouldn’t make him type up in triplicate. 

Ahsoka’s knees nestled down on either side of his waist. The tip of his cock, throbbing and soaked, lined up against her slit. His breath hitched, his abdominals trembled in anticipation. She balanced him there, readying them both. Rex tucked his knees up and planted his feet as firmly as he could on the marble, slippery with their own sweat. This required some coordination. One. Two. Three on the downstroke. Rex bucked up as Ahsoka punched down.

Rex hit bone. She was as tight as a barrel—rifled, and just as hot. His heart tingled like it’d been jabbed with a stim, and for a moment, he saw nothing but white tracers against black. Ahsoka’s cry—shrill and warbling—rang through the chamber and very nearly pierced his ears. It reminded him of a dying aiwha a little more than usual, and if they’d been alone, Rex would’ve insisted they quit so he didn’t shoot off to her discomfort. He hated himself enough as it was.

A totally alien noise echoed Ahsoka’s. A squeaking—no, a _whining,_ panted out and desperate. The queen. It was gross, but Rex strained to catch a command among the vocalizations, and above the pounding in his own head, but he couldn’t make out any words. 

Rex’s even girth was held so tight, he couldn’t have generated any thrust if he tried. But between the cilia overstimulating his tip and the swells of muscle clenching his length, Rex had only to take one hazy look at the sunset strewn with gold spread on top of him before he shattered. A shock of concentrated bliss surged outwards from his groin. His heels kicked out and his shoulders spasmed up off the floor. He collapsed back, satisfied and soggy, and felt the strings of his own come drawn out of him.

A frisk across his peaked nipples made Rex nearly double over again. Ahsoka pressed him down. Her elbows were locked, but there was no mistaking the hungry set to her jaw, her lips flared over two fangs as she took short, nasally breaths. It killed him to do it, but Rex drew his hands up into guard above his neck. The collar covered most of his vulnerable spots, blessedly, but if her trembling arms gave out and her instincts kicked in, he’d have to grab for her throat.

She rocked back and forth on his crotch, slowly. Enough to stimulate her outer folds with his curls and, he supposed, maintain some interest for their audience. 

A disturbing silence settled—no whines, just the sound of Ahsoka panting and her chain tinkling as she moved. Rex had softened so much inside her that she was able to build up friction again. Her besh sucked on his limp, tender dick. And there was no staving off her appetite now. She couldn’t wait for the queen. Her lekku tips curled inward and froze. With a curse, Ahsoka slammed into his hips. Searing pain shot across Rex’s left breast as her nails broke the scar tissue.

The faintest trill, punctuated by clicks, was all he ever heard of her climax. The frequency was too high for his hearing, but they’d discovered it could fracture Mustafaran glass. It was an ugly gift, Padmé had never liked it anyway.

Rex grabbed for Ahsoka out of habit. If a Togrutan orgasm whistled like a shell, the Force often made her go off like one. Rex’s medical records listed a lot of limmie injuries for a man who always won and never played dirty. He grappled for her belt, for all the good it might do him if she sent them both flying. That Ahsoka cooperated with the laws of physics, crumbling down onto his chest, suggested she wasn’t even on speaking terms with the Force. She lay there, still as a corpse, while Rex tried to ignore the vise around his spent, bloodless cock. What felt like the third heaven of delight when he was hard always made him worry his dick was going to be pinched off when he was soft and in his rational mind. 

Exhaustion tugged at his limbs, and the comforting weight of Ahsoka draped around him nearly fooled him into contentment. But they weren’t in his bunk or on the sparring floor. They were lying in chains at the foot of a Separatist throne; the tyrant regarding them from on high had not been obeyed; and he was stuck inside Ahsoka’s cervix. 

Rex shook his mind back into alertness just in time to see the queen stand up, straighten her skirt, and begin her descent again. She tutted at them between her sharp teeth. “Too greedy. I wasn’t finished.” 

Rex rolled himself up, holding a trembling Ahsoka tight to his chest, and regarded the queen’s approach with a suspicious frown. She knelt down behind Ahsoka, her sithly yellow eyes hooded and blown, and … began petting her headtail.

“But I sympathize. Human males seem designed for carnal delight. It is no wonder they are such a numerous species. No barbs or teeth or knots…”

It was so brazen, Rex almost didn’t hear his training urging him to snatch her royal forearm and snap it in two. The guards were meters away. He could do it. But Ahsoka, not as spiced as she looked, beat him to it. She whipped her head round and snapped, narrowly missing the queen’s fingers. 

The queen jerked back, stunned, then slapped Ahsoka across the face, hard. “Skug!”

Rex fumed, but the queen was now well out of reach. And the creak of side door behind him said they had company. “What is this?” growled a familiar voice. “You promised her to me!” 

Molec. 

“No, no, no,” Ahsoka moaned, burying her face into Rex’s shoulder and locking her ankles around his lower back. Rex adopted a similar posture, like bracing for a crash landing. What euphoria remained of his orgasm was washed away by cold adrenaline. This was definitely an emergency. He estimated another five minutes before Ahsoka’s core relaxed enough for him to slip out. Until then, they were sitting mynocks.

“Do not presume to tell me what I will do with my own possessions,” the queen snapped, springing to her feet. 

If Molec wanted Ahsoka, he’d have to break every bone in Rex’s body. Rex curled further around her as Molec’s footsteps drew near. When he stepped past them altogether, Rex briefly thought he might round on the queen. But then he watched in horror as Molec reached for the end of Ahsoka’s chain. And drew it up.

Rex had been sucking void all day. None of his training had been of any fucking use. Until now. His hands grabbed Ahsoka’s chain, whitening his knuckles around the rough metal links. Then he threw his weight backwards. Rex’s heels scrambled for purchase on the marble, trying to scoot them back far enough so he could grab the metal bar that locked his own chain in place.

He was inches away when he finally met resistance. On the floor between them, the chain snapped taut. Molec yanked his end up. Rex was suddenly back playing tug-of-war on Kamino, the placement of his feet meaning the difference between dinner and another five-klick sprint for his entire platoon. The stakes weren’t much higher—cadets sometimes had their service terminated over a few seconds—but they were certainly different. If Rex’s grip faltered, if his feet slipped out, Ahsoka would be ripped from his body, or they’d be strangled to death in some holoporno from hell. Ahsoka’s own hands came up behind her head, fisting the length that hung loose between Rex’s hands and the collar, and she tugged too. 

“Molec, you animal!” the queen screamed. She actually turned on her subordinate and lashed her talons across his flushed face. “Stop this at once!” 

Molec howled in anger. Rex grit his teeth, literally holding on by the skin of his shebs, and _pulled._ His forearms cramped up, but he knotted his biceps with everything he had left. Finally, the chain came with him, and he fell backwards with a grunt. Ahsoka pushed herself up. Her eyes were wild with fear. Rex watched, winded, as she tested the give in between her thighs. It was no good. She was still holding fast. 

There was a fierce exchange taking place in the native tongue between Molec and the queen.

“The collars, Rex, the collars,” Ahsoka whispered, taking advantage of the distraction. She screwed up her face in concentration as she twisted his collar in her hands. After a pause, it dropped from his neck. 

So when that same tattooing torment from earlier surged out from his cock, like some sort of ejaculation in reverse, burning his skin and grinding through his skull, Rex was doubly shocked. Ahsoka hadn’t been quick enough with her own collar. He felt her convulsing on top of him, but the pain made Rex insensate to everything else.

When the tremors ceased, the weight of her disappeared from his stomach with a strangled cry. He felt the skin of his cock tugged tight before a draft of air brushed against his smarting crotch. Ahsoka was gone. Rex’s mind clawed itself back into awareness, and he heaved himself up to see a guard dragging her backwards by her chain, attempting to stick her with a hypo. 

Rex’s own collar had been replaced, and he could only watch as the guard stabbed it into her shoulder. But Ahsoka gave as good as she got. She dropped the chain, letting it snap up and pull the collar tight against her throat, and instead used her hands to seize the guard. There was a lot of movement, it was difficult to see precisely, but the guard’s yelp and the twist in his arm said she’d gotten her fangs into one of these Zygerrians at last.

Ahsoka went limp about the same time the guard did. The queen spat something at Molec and threw her arms up in exasperation, muttering something about _Kenobi_ as she gestured in Rex’s direction.

_I’m losing her. I’m losing my Jedi._

Rex’s mind began a tight orbit around that failing, drawing in on itself as a guard drew in on him. It had taken the length of a Zygerrian afternoon, unending and merciless, but Rex finally got his wish when the hypo stung his neck. As sweat dripped into his eyes, mingling with tears, shadows crowded his vision. He blacked out, and he knew nothing more.


End file.
